How Light and Shadow Change Your Drawing

Welcome to Draw Tip Tuesday!

Light and shadow can completely change a drawing. In today's video, let's explore how light direction creates shadows, depth, contrast, and even color.

I use a baby plant shooting its roots in a bottle as my subject, and move a single light source around it to see what happens.

Small changes in light create big visual shifts, and that is exactly what makes this such a useful and fun thing to practice.

Observe the shapes of the shadows, and treat the shadow itself as a shape in the drawing too. By repeating the same setup with different light angles, you start to really see what light and shadow do. You notice longer or shorter shadows, darker or lighter areas, shifting highlights, and subtle color changes.

Repetition helps you see more, and draw with more confidence.

If you watched last week’s video about drawing transparency, this one builds nicely on that.

Materials I use in this video:

• Letterwish sketchbook

• Sailor fountain pen with a bent calligraphy nib, loaded with Platinum Carbon Black waterproof ink

• Daniel Smith watercolors

• Pentel Aquash waterbrush

• Flashlight on my smartphone

I hope this inspires you to look at everyday objects a little longer and play with light in your own sketchbook.

If you'd like an assignment, find it on my Patreon page!